Sachgebiete

Beschreibung:

1017 S. Fadengehefteter Originalpappband.

Bemerkung:

Ein gutes und sauberes Exemplar. - With a recorded history of nearly 4,000 years, Chinese civilization is one of the oldest in the world. Until modern times its development had been largely indigenous, partly because of the independent spirit of the Chinese people and partly because of China's isolation from the other great civilizations. However, with the advent of the Age of Discovery a drastically different situation set in. Portuguese and Spanish explorers and envoys began to arrive in South China via the new sea routes in the 16th century, and in their wake came the traders and missionaries. Shortly afterwards, the Russians marched across Siberia and reached the Manchurian border in the mid-17th century. These events were nothing less than epochal for China, for they broke its age-old isolation and initiated the beginning of direct East-West contact, which, though weak and faltering at first, was to grow to such force in the 19th century as to effect a head-on collision between China and the West. Moreover, when viewed in the context of China's domestic development, the arrival of the Europeans takes on added significance: it coincided with the rise of the Manchus and the establishment of the alien Ch'ing dynasty. These momentous foreign and domestic developments left behind far-reaching consequences which endowed the period that followed with characteristics markedly different from earlier times. First and foremost, the convergence of Chinese and Western history ended China's seclusion and resulted in its increasing involvement in world affairs, until today what happens in one immediately affects the other. Second, the interplay of foreign and domestic elements gave rise to revolutionary changes in the Chinese political system, economic institutions, social structure, and intellectual attitudes. "Change" thus became a key feature of the period, making it far more complex than ever before. Third, the forcible injection of alien elements into Chinese life-the Westerners from without and the Manchus from within-generated a strong sense of nationalistic-racial consciousness, which was to influence deeply the future course of Chinese history. So distinct is this period from earlier ones that it justifiably forms a separate period of historical investigation.